Reviews Round-up

Indian passengers wait on a train at railway staion during a power outage in New Delhi in July 2012. (Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP/GettyImages

Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

In Andrew Duff’s review in the Telegraph, he praises Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh for its “witty and insightful traveller’s-eye view of the country from inside its railway network”. Rajesh appears to have avoided falling into the trap of boring the reader with a tedious travel memoir by exploring India geographically as well as culturally: Rajesh criss-crosses Induan Rail’s “geographical diamond”, experiencing all its freedoms and frustrations while enduring endless inquiries as to her marital status.”

Time Out Mumbai, while praising, is also more critical of the book. Their reviewer Karishma Attar begins with the damning claim that India’s image as “exotic and dangerous” hasn’t changed with this new travelogue. “The novelty and satiric richness run out quickly for the experienced Indian traveller. Dry humour doesn’t quite take the sting out of travel Indian-isms, which Rajesh lists with unerring steadfastness...” Attar does point out the text’s “witty, dry, first-person account” but adds: “This is a journey rife with 'shocks' that comes as no surprise.”

Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson’s Makers: The New Industrial Revolution may be optimistic but the Guardian’s Steven Poole is not convinced. He criticises the American editor-in-chief of Wired’s “techno-economic utopia [which] looks curiously scrambled”. Poole goes on to add that “[f]ew techno-utopias are as confusing as this one. In Anderson's brave new world, everyone is a creative-geek tinkerer but no one does the boring stuff”.

In contrast, Michael Roth’s review on the Huffington Post and in the Washington Post is more complimentary. “Anderson is an excellent guide to companies that make niche products for an international market ... [and] a good storyteller,” according to Roth. According to Roth, Anderson is “an indefatigable cheerleader for the unlimited potential of the digital economy”. Likewise, Oliver Franklin in GQenjoys the “fascinating characters” featured in the book from “Will Chapman, a Washington-based designer 3D printing Lego kits, to Neil Gershenfeld, an MIT professor”.

Murder at Wrotham Hill by Diana Souhami

Diana Souham’s previous book, Edith Cavell, told the story of the eponymous nurse who was shot for smuggling allied soldiers out of Belgium during the First World War. In her latest offering, Murder at Wrotham Hill, we are transported to post-war Kent and the murder of “gentle eccentric spinster” Dagmar Petrzywalski.

Critics are unanimous in their view that Souhami’s book evokes a detailed picture of postwar austerity Britain. TheGuardian’s Blake Morrison writes “both the murderer and murderee were classic products of the age”. He observes the author’s use of “zeitgeisty minutiae”, which is not always effective: “[It] is enriching, at worst distracting.”

But whilst Morrison “isn’t entirely clear” as to why Souhami chooses to write about the “model citizen of austerity Britain”, Jenny Diski in the London Review of Books admires the “great clairity and attention” with which Souhami evokes the postwar period.

Sinclair McKay of the Telegraph, whilst also reading the work historically, praises it for transcending cultural emphera: “Both killer and victim stood at an angle to society, and the strangeness of their stories resonates deeply in another way, leading one to meditate on ideas of malevolent fate and evil.” He is full of praise for Souhami’s writing which he describes as “too clever to allow any neatness”, evoking the “cruel and bewildering randomness” of the murder in question.